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Tuesday, July 22, 2025State Continues To Founder In Enforcing Court Ruling To Improve Public Ed Seven Years After The Fact; New Approach Offered, Plus: Reader React On NM Film Decline Seven years is the entire lifespan of the MLG administration. The state continues to rank 50th in the nation in public education. We've reported on Yazzie since the beginning and have not wavered in our belief that the state and PED can do a turnaround. But we're throwing in the towel now because we're losing another generation of young New Mexicans. The time has arrived to inject competition into the system. The Legislature should authorize a limited school voucher program that would allow parents to choose a private school to send their kids to. Voucher programs vary by state. For ours, targeting low-income families. students with disabilities and those in under performing schools seems to make the most sense. Not that vouchers are a a panacea. Reviews are mixed. But at this point in the state's history something must change. All the money pumped into the system during this long oil boom has not done the trick. Alternatives now demand legislators full attention. Republicans have been pushing vouchers for years. Their time has finally come. SHRINKING FILMS ABQ reader Cheryl Haaker has this on our Monday blog detailing the recent decline in film production in the state: I appreciated your discussion of the shrinking film presence here in New Mexico. A factor that I suspect contributed significantly to New Mexico falling out of favor is the prosecutorial circus in the Alec Baldwin "Rust" shooting case. Not only was Mr. Baldwin charged with involuntary manslaughter for what was an accident but it was over a year after the event before the person actually responsible for preparing (and providing security) for the guns was charged. Misjudgement? Incompetence? Publicity seeking? Any way you stack it, it doesn't look good for the judicial system in Santa Fe. So any movie involving the reckless and excessive use of firearms (that's nearly 100% of 'em) would think twice about filming in New Mexico, particularly in the Santa Fe area.
And along those same lines from reader Ron Nelson:
Maybe if New Mexico didn’t have such an over zealous prosecutor that went after the key players in the Rust production, things would be different. You don’t think Hollywood wasn’t watching? We can’t keep blaming COVID for systemic failures.
On a different note, reader David Buchholtz writes: Your story on the state of the film industry here resonated. You might want to check out Eddington, filmed primarily in T or C, which opened this weekend. It is a neo-noir, Western, political satire, among other things, getting a great deal of national publicity and has significant New Mexico overtones.
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